House Stuff

Well, we found a property out in Elizabeth that we really like. It is beautiful and huge and I keep asking myself what is wrong with it, that it is taking so long to sell. Well, today I got a glimpse of what might be the issue. The seller's end of things are taking ridiculously long. We made an offer and it was accepted right away. We were so excited! They had until the end of the week to get the short sale package to the bank and then the waiting would begin. Well, the end of the week came and they had a couple things they needed to get done and please give us till Tuesday to get the package in? So we wrote up an extension and gave them until Tuesday. Well, our realtor called today to say that as far as she knows, the package still hasn't been submitted to the bank. That is 2 weeks wasted and we can't get back. Knowing that banks can take 30-90 days (and more) to get back on if they "approve" the short sale this is extremely frustrating. We only have until the end of April before our lease is up which may seem like a long time but in actuality will be here before we know it. If we don't sign another long term lease then our rent will skyrocket to crazy amounts. More than we can realistically afford. So getting this process finished sooner than later will be in our best interest. After some discussion, we decided to give them one more extension (we really love the house.) Please pray that they will get their act together and get what is needed submitted to the bank ASAP. If they can't meet this deadline though, then we are going to get out of the contract and look somewhere else for housing. Please pray that God will guide our footsteps and make it clear what we should do. Thanks everyone!

House Hunting

Since we moved to Colorado, we have lived in a small 2 bedroom apartment that we just had 3 days to find. We had no idea of the area, or where the best places may be to live. It suited our needs at the time but now I'm itching really bad to have our own place to live. Whether it be renting or buying, I want a house. I really want a yard that I can feel comfortable letting my kids run around outside and play. I would love to live in a neighborhood where I can let the kids ride their bikes and not worry about getting run over every other second. Our current lease is finished at the end of April. I was planning on the next couple of months to start looking for a place to rent, but the more I started thinking, the more I thought it would be great if we could actually own a place. We have been extremely blessed that Dwayne has a full-time job and at this time, he is pretty confident that he won't be losing it. Our debt load is extremely high though. It is an area that we are working on bit by bit but is still a work in progress. Because of that, I wasn't really sure that we would be able to qualify for a loan we could afford. But I thought that it wouldn't hurt to check. So I made some phone calls a couple of weeks ago to some mortgage brokers to see what they could do for me.

I was extremely pleased and surprised to find out that we could qualify for an FHA loan. We would still need to come up with 3.5% down though and I wasn't sure how we could come up with that. It turns out there were a few options open to us and we will be able to get it covered. We turned in the application and have been pre-approved. I'm just shocked. I really didn't think we would be able to qualify at this time. With the market so low right now, it is a buyer's market and we will be able to get a decent house as well. I'm pretty excited. Many ducks have to line up just right for all this to go through. If it does, then we know that God opened the door for us to be able to do this at this time.

Tomorrow, we get to go house-hunting with the realtor. There aren't a ton of houses in our price range in the area where we want to live but there are a few. Again, God's hand will have to be on us to lead us to just the right place. The timing will have to work out as well, as we can't abandon our lease until April. We will only have about 1-month's extra leeway to leave early. Again, everything will have to line up just right. But if we make an offer on a short-sale, then it could take several months anyway. So we'll just see what happens. Please pray for us that we will have the perfect home and it will fall in perfect timing.